


Divide and Conquer

by trustingHim17



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Cocaine, Drug Use, Gen, Injury, Story: The Adventure of the Devil's Foot, Trust, Whump, pre-Devil's Foot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26020273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingHim17/pseuds/trustingHim17
Summary: We know that Holmes and Watson were spending time on the Cornish coast during DEVI as a rest-cure for Holmes. We also know that it was about this time that Holmes finally broke his cocaine addiction. Why did Holmes finally agree to put away the cocaine, and what were the events leading up to that decision?
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

_For me, there still remains the cocaine-bottle._

I should have known.

It should have been as clear as day even for my limited deduction skills.

But it wasn’t. I left that day, going to begin looking for a practice and planning my wedding, and I left Holmes home alone.

It is my fault that he descended into yet another cocaine binge, the first from which I was not able to pull him. Once he started, there was nothing I said or did that would induce him to put the needle down, even for a day—even for a case. Usually he went without for cases, but occasionally, I had seen the signs—the blown pupils, the rapid, jerky movements, the elevated energy—that he was coming off a high in the midst of a case.

It terrified me.

I knew well the results of drug addiction. I had seen it enough times in the aftermath of Maiwand, when soldiers dealing with the debilitating pain of their injuries turned to drugs liberally supplied by doctors—charlatans—claiming that addiction was not a worry. Most of them had long ago overdosed themselves into obscurity, but even those who still lived were shells of who they used to be. I feared that for Holmes.

But he pulled out of it, however slowly. Within several months, he was back to the minimal use that I had known about for years—still dangerous, I knew, but not as immediately life threatening. Time passed without him falling too deeply, and I relaxed.

Then he was gone, and I wished I could argue with him about the needle again—anything to have my dearest friend back. Anything to not be alone anymore.

When he returned to London, the first thing I checked was how often the Moroccan case moved from its spot on the mantle, and I was gratified. It remained stationary for years, apparently unopened, and I began to hope that my friend had beaten the drug while he was away. His travels would certainly have made it difficult to supply himself, and three years was long enough for other, better habits to form. He all but said as much, the one time he caught me glancing at the case on the mantle.

News spread quickly of his return, all the tabloids heralding that Holmes had “returned from the dead,” and, despite the dislike he held for such a headline, people responded. We were flooded with cases, and we settled into a normal I would never have thought to obtain again, after the long, lonely months following Mary’s death.

I dared to hope. That all was well. That all would stay well. That he had beaten the drug.

A niggling worry remained in the back of my mind, and I checked the case occasionally, but it remained untouched. I wished he would take it off the mantle, wished he would get rid of the temptation, but it was not for me to say what he could or could not resist, and I would not risk inspiring the idea by mentioning the case. He seemed to have defeated the drug, and I would do nothing to risk undoing that victory.

I was right to worry, however. Such a fiend is never defeated, only made to sleep. It was only a matter of time before it woke.

“Holmes?”

I dropped my hat and coat in their places and mounted the steps, finally home from a two-week-long medical conference north of London.

“Holmes, are you here? I managed to catch the earlier train.”

I climbed the stairs to the sitting room, listening for any sign that Holmes was home. Usually, when I returned from an absence of any length, I would find Holmes in the sitting room, and he would join me by the fire to discuss my trip. We did the same thing when he went somewhere alone. It was a way to share the interesting bits of our travels while they were fresh, while also taking the excuse to relax from a tiring day, and I looked forward to it.

None of the lights were on, however, and I opened the door to a darkened sitting room and peered into the gloom. Was Holmes out? I had come back early. He would not have been watching for me for another few hours, and a case might have distracted him in the meantime.

My eyes adjusted, and I spotted Holmes sitting in his armchair, staring into space and apparently unaware I had returned.

“Holmes?”

I moved closer, turning up the gas as I did so. Why had he not answered? Was he asleep?

Light filled the room, and my heart sank. Holmes sat in his armchair, dilated pupils staring blankly, with his syringe and the Moroccan case on the table beside him.

Considering that he gave no notice to my arrival, it had obviously not been very long since his last dose, and his appearance screamed that it had been days since the first one. He was wan, sunken from the effects of the drug, telling me that this was more than an occasional usage over the last two weeks. He had been dosing himself several times a day for at least a week.

I did not even bother to unpack, and he never noticed as I turned and retreated to my room.


	2. Chapter 2

He took a deep breath as the high faded, standing for the first time in nearly an hour to stretch. Watson would be back soon; he should put the syringe away before his friend arrived. The doctor had never liked Holmes’ infrequent cocaine usage, claiming he was doing himself harm, and he saw no reason to sit through another lecture when he could avoid it.

Grabbing the case, he turned toward the fireplace and frowned, faint confusion washing over him as he continued to the hearth. He had no memory of turning the gas up before injecting himself, but he brushed it off as he placed the case in its spot on the mantle. It was strange, but it was not the first time he had lost memories while under the effects of the drug.

Coming down from the solution always left him restless, and he began pacing off the nervous energy while he waited. Watson had said he would be taking the six fifteen train, which meant he would arrive at Baker Street around half past, if he took a cab, or quarter to seven, if he walked. After over two weeks out of London, Watson would probably take a cab, and it was twenty after the hour now. Watson would be here any minute.

But the minutes passed, and the door below remained closed. Holmes kept pacing, uninterested in sitting while he waited. Where was Watson? Had something happened to his train?

He had probably just decided to walk, Holmes decided, and it was taking longer than normal, for whatever reason. A smile nearly escaped. His friend had probably seen someone in need of help and stopped. Generous to a fault, was Watson. He would be home shortly.

The hands moved past seven, however, then eight, and still the door below remained closed. Holmes’ pacing changed to worry rather than the aftereffects of the seven percent solution. Had there been an accident?

He moved to the window, scanning the street for a crier. There was a newspaper stand just down the block, and the boys that worked there frequently walked further up Baker Street, knowing that when something happened, Holmes was likely to want a paper.

The street held no more than the steadily decreasing flow of people as night fell, however, and he returned to his pacing, trying to convince himself that nothing had happened, that his friend had simply missed his train and had been forced to take the next one. It was unusual that he had not sent word, but telegrams could go astray. The next train had already arrived. Watson would walk through the door any minute.

The door below opened, then shut, and he relaxed, forcing himself to walk slowly to the landing. There was no reason to display the worry that had plagued him for the last few hours. He leaned over the railing, expecting to see Watson maneuvering his bags inside.

“Hello, Mr. Holmes,” Mrs. Hudson acknowledged when she glanced up to see him staring. “I got the meat you requested for tomorrow, though you nearly lost it when my nephew tried to steal it. That boy delights in finding trouble.”

She kept chattering, telling about her visit with her sister as she finished removing her outerwear and picked up her bags to take to the kitchen. Holmes merely watched, noting the jam on her sleeve that spoke of a small hand and the dust on her shoes that told at which market she had bought the meat. Unbothered at the lack of response, she eventually moved to her rooms, and he went back to pacing in front of the fireplace.

Where was Watson? He should have arrived hours ago.

A quiet sound intruded on his thoughts, and he halted, listening for the door to close below him. The door remained quiet, and he listened harder. What had he heard?

It came again, barely audible, and he frowned. That sounded like music, but from where was it coming? Was there a street performer nearby?

Moving back to the open window, he peered out, but he could not hear it at all from there. He moved back to the center of the room, listening.

There was a long moment of quiet, but it came again: a faint note, barely loud enough to hear. Someone was playing nearby, but who? Neither of their neighbors were musically inclined, as evidenced by the frequent complaints at his music, and even if Mrs. Hudson could play, he could still hear her moving around the kitchen.

Could it be—? But when? He stepped over to the sitting room door, and the music grew steadily louder until he could hear it clearly.

It came from the room above, carrying faintly down the stairs from Watson’s bedroom. Watson must have taken an earlier train.

That explained the lights being on. He had not lost the memory of turning up the gas. There was no memory to lose because he had not turned up the gas. Watson had.

Watson had come home early and, finding him in the grips of the drug Watson had always despised, had taken himself to his room rather than settle in the sitting room. He supposed that was better than staying to lecture.

Or was he injured and hiding it? Holmes’ frown deepened. If something had happened, there was a chance that Watson had gone straight up to his room when Holmes ignored his arrival rather than treating himself in the sitting room as he usually did. Watson could be playing the notes drifting down the stairs for either reason—or neither—but his bag was not in its normal spot.

He debated leaving Watson to his privacy for only a moment before climbing the stairs. He would rather deal with a lecture on the supposed illogicality of his cocaine than a neglected injury.


	3. Chapter 3

I sat on my bed after putting a few things away. I would not turn in for the night until I heard Holmes move below me, and I took the time to think, a slew of emotions coursing through me. Worry was foremost—that he would dive too deep, that I would come home one day to find him on the floor—and fear was next, for the same reasons, but they were not alone. There was hurt, too, and a bit of anger, betrayal. He had all but promised me shortly after his return that he had given it up for good, and he had obviously been planning to have it back on the mantle by the time I arrived. His highs rarely lasted more than twenty or thirty minutes, and I had been hours early. If I had come home on time, I would only have known if I had noticed his general appearance, and he excelled at hiding those clues. That he would have tried to hide it from me hurt more than if he had injected himself with me in the other armchair.

I put my head in my hands, still listening for movement in the sitting room below me as I let my thoughts drift. Was this my fault? Was there anything I should have done differently? I thought back, but I could find nothing. This trip had been planned for months, and there had been no indication of Holmes’ descending into a Black Mood—his most frequent reason for using the drug—before I left. It had been days since his last case, but he had been researching one of his monographs, scattering papers throughout the sitting room. I had felt sure he would be glad to have the room to himself for a fortnight so he could spread his papers further without me tripping over them.

So maybe it wasn’t my fault, this time, but that did not change the fact that the last one _had_ been my fault, nor did it negate the possibility that I would come home one day to find the worst. He had come close to it a few times in the early years of my marriage and before I had married, when he misjudged the dosage somehow, and to find him too late would be many times worse than Reichenbach. Was there anything I could do to prevent that?

I thought it over for several long minutes, but I could think of nothing short of leaving. If I left, I would not walk in to find him overdosing or dead, but it would be no different than if he had died. I would rather be alone through my choice than another’s, but Holmes had been trying to convince me that I was not alone and would not be alone. Until proven otherwise, I had to believe that Holmes would never drift close to that line. This was only the second time—the first being my marriage—that he had been dosing himself more than occasionally, and I had to hope that he would let me help, that he would join me in finding other things for us to do. Maybe he had only sunk so far because I was not here to pull him out of it.

That was what I told myself, anyway. Only time would prove it true or false.

Movement finally sounded below me as Holmes came down from his high, and I leaned back on the bed with a sigh of relief. Since he had been trying to hide it from me, he would not use again tonight, and it was safe for me to relax. I had not thought to turn down the gas in the sitting room when I left, and that would serve to tell him that I was home, leaving me free to remain in my room. He would not worry that something had happened to my train, and I did not really care to sit before the fire tonight.

With no reason to go down to the sitting room, and deciding that it was too early to sleep, I grabbed a short novel off my shelf and tried to lose myself in its pages, but I struggled to focus. I gave up only a few chapters in after rereading a page for the third time without understanding it. My thoughts refused to center on anything other than Holmes, running in circles to chase worry with regret, anger, and fear.

I could not think on this tonight; I would never sleep if I did. I shoved the book back in its spot on the shelf with a hint of frustration and grabbed my viola off my desk, hoping to use it to calm my racing mind. I had moved it and my medical bag to my room before I left—mostly to prevent Holmes misplacing either of them in his research—and I was grateful for that now. It meant I would not have to go down to the sitting room to get it, and I played softly, losing myself in the music instead of using it to focus my thoughts.

Footsteps brought me out of my concentration before I had played for very long, however, and I frowned, wondering why Holmes was coming upstairs after so much time. The door opened simultaneous to a knock before I could do more than lower the instrument, and I looked up to see Holmes standing in the doorway.

The anger and hurt returned, and I fought to keep my expression blank, merely raising an eyebrow at the intrusion as I tried to raise the defenses I had built years before.

He scanned me, slight worry in his gaze, and I wondered what he was thinking. I finally broke the silence when he continued staring, though I was annoyed to hear a small bit of my irritation leak out in my tone.

“What is it?”

“You are not injured?” Surprise was clear in his voice, and my anger grew.

“No.” _Not in the way you mean_.

He frowned, obviously detecting the mix of anger and hurt I strove to keep out of my voice. “Then why did you not join me in the sitting room?”

A half-hearted laugh nearly escaped; for a master of deductions, he could be incredibly oblivious. I turned away, putting my viola in its case as I answered, “Because you were not in the sitting room, Holmes, and I saw no reason to sit with a statue.” I paused, then tried for a pawky remark to cover the cynicism my tone conveyed, “I am not the one who wanted to keep the statue that night, after all.” I forced a smirk as I looked back at him. “That was you.”

He frowned, stepping into the room to lean slightly on the doorway as he studied me, but he said nothing. I quickly grew tired of his searching gaze.

“What is it?” I asked again. I doubted he had come up to stare at me, but I could not figure out why he had not gone back downstairs when he realized I was not hiding some injury.

“Why are you angry?” he finally asked.

Of all the questions to ask!

I crossed my arms, staring at him as my anger grew and overwhelmed the hasty barrier I had put up. “Why do you _think_ I’m angry, Holmes?” I snapped at him. “I came home to find you in the grips of the drug you told me you had quit, that you hadn’t touched in years. And worse, you were going to try to hide it from me!” I gestured to the needle scabs on his arms, “Do you really think I would not have noticed the evidence that you have injected yourself several times a day for the last week?”

His relaxed posture against the doorframe changed at my words. “Since when are you my keeper?” he growled at me.

Before his supposed death, I would simply have lectured him on the dangers of cocaine—if I said anything at all—so I knew that his defensiveness was both at my angry words and as a result of the drug still lingering in his system, but that made no difference to the anger and hurt coursing through me.

“I am not your keeper, Holmes, but I am your friend.” I paused and corrected, “Or, at least, you are mine. I have no wish to come home to find you dead!”

He scoffed at me, standing from his place in the doorway. “You are not going to find me dead, Watson. It is only a seven percent solution, and I know the dosages well.” He smirked at me, his face twisting in an angry—nearly cruel—facsimile of amusement so unlike his normal quirking grin, and I smothered a shiver. Such an expression was totally opposite to the Holmes I knew, completely the result of the drug he had taken. “As you well know,” he added. “What I do is my business. You have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do.”

He turned and left, storming down the stairs oblivious to the realization coursing through me, and I leaned back against the headboard as my anger drained. I had started giving him medical lessons years ago, when he started asking questions after one of our earliest cases, and that came with knowing the correct pain medicine dosages.

Not only had I unknowingly aided him in his addiction, but if he ever overdosed, it would be completely my fault.

I put my head in my hands, disregarding the viola I had left on the bed beside me. There would be no sleep for me tonight.


	4. Chapter 4

He stormed down the stairs, furious beyond words. How _dare_ Watson insinuate that he should have a say in what Holmes did or did not do? The cocaine was harmless. There was no reason for Watson to get so angry over something so minor. It wore off partially in less than thirty minutes and completely after a few hours, and one or two doses did wonders to prevent his mind from stagnating without a case.

_He had used far more than that for the last week._

He brushed away the thought. What did it matter? It was certainly no reason for Watson’s bull pup to show like that. It was not like the cocaine was hurting him or anyone else.

He returned to pacing the sitting room, anger lending him energy. Watson was _not_ his keeper! He had no right to any say in what Holmes did. What did it matter if Holmes had turned to the cocaine after several years without? He had not said he had given it up; he had said he had not had need of it, which was true at the time. There had been need of it this week when he finished his research and still no case presented itself. He had felt a Black Mood coming on, and, not wishing for Watson to return to that, he had turned to the stimulation to hold it at bay.

Watson ought to be _grateful_ for the cocaine, for it preventing Holmes from sinking into another pit! It always worried Watson to see Holmes caught in one of the Black Moods that occasionally overwhelmed him, saying several times over the years that he would do anything to help. Well, the cocaine helped; the high of the drug was much better than the low of such a mood.

_Watson did not agree_.

He furiously shoved the thought away. Of course, Watson would agree—if he had known what Holmes was trying to avoid. He had only gotten so angry because he did not know what the alternative had been. He would have relaxed had Holmes admitted that the cocaine was to prevent a pit from engulfing him…wouldn’t he?

_…I am your friend_. A pause. _Or, at least, you are mine._

His anger faded as the words reverberated in his memory, and he began thinking it over instead of fuming. He had gone up expecting to either receive a lecture or treat an injury, and instead he had received an argument. Why had Watson gotten so angry? Holmes was perfectly fine and would continue to be fine. Watson was the only one Holmes had ever heard believe that cocaine was anything but harmless, even among other doctors. Holmes had attributed it to his experience in and after Maiwand, but that still did not answer the most important question: Why had Watson gotten angry this time instead of delivering another medical lecture on the dangers of drug use?

And what had prompted such a comment hinting that Watson did not think Holmes considered him a friend? He thought they had settled that months ago, in the aftermath of an overheard conversation.

He pondered this for over an hour, turning the question over in his mind as he sought to make sense of the change. Had this been somehow different than the other times Holmes had used the cocaine to escape a Black Mood?

No, he decided. There was nothing different. He had felt a Black Mood coming on when no new case had presented itself and, without Watson there to display his displeasure and suggest something else, Holmes had turned to the one thing that had never failed. He had lowered the dosage to account for the years since he had last used it, and the days had melted away before the stimulation of the drug. It had worked perfectly, and he no longer felt the grip of a Black Mood trying to latch onto him.

So what had made Watson so angry?

_Do you really think I would not have noticed the evidence that you have injected yourself several times a day for the last week?_

Was that it? Did Watson really think he had tried to hide it? Why would he hide it? There was nothing wrong with the small doses he took. They were useful, and they helped him escape his own thoughts for a time. Frequently, they even helped him puzzle through something that had been stumping him. There was nothing wrong with that, and, moreover, he enjoyed the high, the rush the drug gave him as it melted the time away. It was a pleasant sensation, one he wished lasted quite a bit longer than it actually did. The mild solution of cocaine was good, helpful.

He almost regretted that Watson was home, in fact, as he rather wanted to use it again. If Watson was not going to join him in the sitting room, what else was there to do?

He hesitated before he turned toward the mantle, however. The doctor rarely stayed angry for long. Maybe Watson would join him in the sitting room after his anger cooled? As pleasant as the solution’s effects were, he would take their original plan of an evening in front of the fire, given the choice.

A frantic knock sounded on the door below before he could make up his mind, and he straightened and hurried down the stairs, waving Mrs. Hudson away when her door cracked open. A young constable stood on the step, already apologizing for coming so late, but would Mr. Holmes be available to assist at a crime scene?

Elation shot through him, and every thought of the cocaine fled. Asking for just a moment to grab his coat, he bolted back up to the sitting room, wondering if Watson would join him.

He called up the stairs toward the bedroom, but silence reigned in the upstairs room. When a second call also produced no answer, he decided his friend must have already gone to bed and put it out of his mind as he hurried after the constable, already asking for details before the door had closed behind them.


	5. Chapter 5

I saw no more evidence in the following days that he was using so frequently, and I hoped the case had provided a distraction even as I admitted to myself that he may just be hiding the effects now that he knew I was watching. I took to leaving my medical bag in my room, not wanting to worry about him using my supply, but the case kept us rushing in and out for over a week after he finally shared the details with me so I could assist him. I had been half grateful, half irritated that he had not asked me along that first night, but perhaps leaving me out of this one at first was for the best, anyway. Holmes need not include me on all his cases, and I had still been more than a little irritated with him for trying to deceive me. My irritation eventually faded, lost to the busyness of tracing leads and unraveling the mystery of our client’s younger brother’s disappearance, and the days flew by.

My irritation returned quicker than I would have liked, however, when I came home from a day covering another doctor’s practice to see the Moroccan case had shifted. One of the first things I habitually checked upon returning home was where his cocaine rested, and within a few days of the case’s conclusion, I could tell he had begun using again. I said nothing, keeping myself nearby in the event of a problem while trying to get him to agree to a walk, a chess game, or anything else I could think of.

He denied every idea, and even his chemistry set started gathering dust as Mrs. Hudson’s worried glances began matching mine. He was spending hours in his armchair, staring at nothing after injecting more poison into his veins, and I grew more worried every day. He refused to listen to me, and my fear of arriving home to find him dead grew when I realized how large his doses were becoming. His body adapted to the drug with every injection, and every subsequent dose grew larger as he fought to recreate the high he so craved.

I tried pointing it out to him, but he scoffed at me. I tried hiding his supply in various places, ranging from attic rafters to cellar cobwebs, but there was no place in the flat where I could conceal it for more than twenty minutes. He did not even react when the web’s large owner skittered over his hand, too focused on retrieving the drug to remember that he despised spiders. When I failed, Mrs. Hudson tried hiding it in her rooms, but Holmes merely deduced its location and retrieved it when she left, usually arguing with me in the process. I tried more complex ideas, trying to redirect his focus with anything I could invent, but he foiled each attempt, scowling at me as he took the vial and syringe back to his armchair. Soon, there was only one thing left for me to try.

I diluted his solution, turning a seven percent into a one to three percent in an attempt to wean him off of the drug involuntarily. He would only increase his dosage to a certain point, I knew—hoped—and maybe he would finally realize how much he craved the drug when the highest dose he dared try had no effect.

I kept this up for three days. That meant three days of worrying he would discover what I had done instead of worrying he would overdose, and three days of monitoring his intake so I would know when I would need to dilute his supply again instead of to calculate how much higher he could go. Given the choice, I preferred one worry over the other, and I would have kept it up for weeks if I could.

I could not, though at least it was through no fault of my own.

The door slammed behind us, muffling the clip clop of another passing cab as I mounted the stairs.

“A game of chess?” I suggested, his quiet footsteps two steps behind me. My question lingered, hanging above the stairwell in the suddenly tense silence between us, and I smothered a sigh. He did not have to answer aloud for me to understand the negative response.

Four days after I began diluting his supply, I had surprised him with tickets to a local concert. I had succeeded in keeping him busy and out of the flat all day, but I had run out of things to suggest after a late supper.

He darted around my slower pace to enter the sitting room first, and I frowned as he quickly settled himself in front of the fireplace, the case on the table beside him. Deciding I had no wish to watch, I was heading for my desk when I heard the distinct click of a gun cocking behind me.

I spun, instinctively trying to drop into a defensive stance and grab my revolver from the desk beside me, but the cold touch of steel halted both those movements before I had more than halfway faced the door.

“Now, now, doctor, let’s not be hasty.”

I froze, trying to remember where I had heard that voice as I stared at Holmes for an indication of what to do, grateful beyond words that he had not yet dosed himself. If he had been in the grips of the drug, I would have had to handle this alone, and only one of us would have survived that. I would willingly make sure that person was Holmes, but it was better that he was lucid. He would be able to put that mind of his to work in removing the threat. All I had to do was follow his lead.

He stood slowly, his gaze focused behind me and to my right. He was outwardly calm though I could see a hint of anxiety creeping in, and I hoped he would be able to keep himself together. The aftereffects of his cocaine usage had been catching up to him despite my subterfuge, leaving him with greater than normal mood swings, anxiety, and a lack of appetite, and if he could not focus, I would have to move as best as I was able. The gun still pressed to my temple clearly showed how that would end, but I would not go alone.

“What a surprise,” my friend said. “You know, Carter, you could have knocked on the door if you wanted to chat. I would have answered.”

Carter. That was the name of the person to whom Holmes had traced a man’s disappearance. Andrew Carter had taken our client’s brother to a shack far away from town, and that was where we had found him two days later, alone despite the evidence that Carter had been there recently. It had taken another three days to find Carter himself, but our trap had succeeded, and Carter was in police custody now, awaiting a trial. How could he have broken into our flat?

“You would not!” he insisted, his voice somehow off-balanced. “You would have waited for days before accusing me like you did my brother! He was innocent, I tell you! Innocent! And you locked him up like a common criminal!”

His brother? I had not known Andrew Carter had a brother, but evidently Holmes had. I adjusted, using Carter’s distraction to try to escape the barrel pressing into my head, and fear lit Holmes’ gaze for barely a moment as Carter’s hand twitched. I stopped moving.

“So, to convince me your brother is innocent, you break into our house and hold us at gunpoint?”

The barrel shook against my skin. “He is innocent,” he insisted, “and he’s going to die because of you!”

“You do not know that, Carter,” Holmes replied soothingly. “There are many outcomes of his actions, beginning with a handful of years of hard labor. What you do here will not change what happens to him. Are you really so close to him that you want to join him or even stay there longer than he will?”

The man hesitated, and for a moment, I thought he was going to remove the gun. He did, just not completely. He moved my desk chair further from the desk, and a hand landed on my shoulder as he pointed the barrel at Holmes.

Rarely would I allow myself to be used as a hostage, and I had been waiting for a chance to escape Carter’s reach, but that removed my choice. While I might have considered attacking with the gun aimed at me, I would not risk Holmes, and I would not be able to take Carter down before he shot. I made no resistance as Carter forced me to sit. Keeping the gun ready, he forced me to awkwardly bring my arms behind the large chair back, and cuffs bound my wrists to the splats. I smothered a grunt of pain as my shoulder loudly protested the awkward position.

Disregarding me now that I was apparently helpless, he stepped closer to the fireplace, and I tried to reach the lock on the cuffs as I only half-listened to Carter’s continued monologue—something about doing to Holmes what Holmes had done to him. I needed to free myself from these cuffs before I could help Holmes, and I focused on that more than on what Carter was saying. I had practiced this before, and I knew I would be able to get out of them eventually. I just had no idea if I would be fast enough. I had not practiced as much with the cuffs looped through the bars of my chair, and that changed the angle I needed to free myself. The pain in my shoulder did nothing to help, either.

The pistol kept Holmes from moving as Carter walked closer to the fireplace to grab the syringe and vial Holmes had left lying on the mantle, and my hopes lifted. I had diluted Holmes’ most recent solution to around three percent. If Carter meant to inject Holmes with his own cocaine, he would likely only hasten his own capture. Holmes’ tolerance was high, and the solution would have very little effect. I would be able to take Carter down while his attention was focused on my friend. Even if I could not free myself from the cuffs pinning me to the chair, Holmes would likely be able to work through the high to take down Carter unaided.

It would be a lot easier if I could get my grip right to pick the lock on these cuffs, however. The lockpick I kept in my sleeve finally slid into my hand, and I felt around, searching for the keyhole on the cuffs.

Carter expertly filled the syringe with one hand, drawing what would have been a fatal dose if undiluted while keeping the gun trained on Holmes, and I fought to free myself from the chair. Carter would have to turn his back to me to overpower Holmes, and that would be my only chance. If Carter saw me coming, he could shoot one of us before I could intervene.

Carter began moving back towards me, and I concealed my movements as I tried to figure out what he was planning. Why would he be coming around behind me before attacking Holmes? I struggled harder, fighting to break free of the cuffs even as I tried to see what he was doing. I could not turn far enough, however, and I felt him touch my arm just before Holmes lunged.

“No!”

Carter’s gun went off, and Holmes’ shout turned into a grunt of pain. His lunge never faltered, however, tackling Carter away from me, and I wondered what Carter had been trying to do while struggling to escape my cuffs so I could help.

The question answered itself. I did not have time to escape as, a few seconds after Holmes tackled Carter away from me, fire lit my veins.

I have survived countless injuries and illnesses both in Holmes’ cases and in the Army, but even the pain of the Jezail bullet impacting my shoulder was nothing compared to the agony that tore through my entire body. Every muscle violently—painfully—spasmed, leaving me shaking in my chair yet entirely conscious—overly conscious of my surroundings.

I have no idea how long I writhed in pain, but I was hyperaware of the sounds of a scuffle, another gunshot, and screaming, though who was screaming I had no idea. The scream slowly quieted, and the scuffle soon followed, leaving me wondering if Holmes was even alive. I fought to open my eyes, to look for him, but my body refused to respond as every muscle continued to twitch and seize. The agony radiating from my shoulder and leg—not to mention everywhere else—was making it hard to react, but I knew Carter had to have injected me with Holmes’ cocaine. With how much I had been diluting his supply, a syringe full should have been just over double a medical dose, so I doubted the dose was fatal—though it was possible—but I had not expected the agony coursing through me. Everything hurt as I shook, and I was vaguely aware that the chair was slowly giving way from the force of my tremors. I had been trying to escape my bonds, but this was not the route I would have taken.

When I was not diluting his supply, Holmes took about two thirds of this dose on a regular basis. Was this the high he so craved? How could he do this on purpose?

I had no idea, and now was certainly not the time to puzzle it out. The screaming resumed as my awareness faded, and I knew no more.


	6. Chapter 6

"No!"

The syringe glinted in the light, and he lunged despite the weapon pointed at him. Perhaps Watson had been correct about the cocaine destroying his mind after all. How had he not deduced Carter’s intention before the man reached the chair?

The syringe disappeared behind Watson as Carter fired, and Holmes grunted as the bullet impacted his arm. He kept moving, tackling Carter to the ground. Only the sound of their scuffle filled the room for a long moment, and Holmes began to hope that he had been fast enough.

Then Watson started screaming.

Choppy, agonized screams filled the sitting room, and Holmes glanced up to see Watson convulsing in his chair as he screamed. Carter took advantage of Holmes' distraction to grab the revolver off the floor, and Holmes ducked as a bullet lodged in the ceiling.

He could do nothing for Watson until they were no longer under attack, and he forced himself to focus on the madman fighting him, to focus on subduing the bedlamite that had broken into their flat. He had not thought it possible, but James Carter was even worse than his brother. Andrew Carter had been strange, producing the strangest reasons for kidnapping a man and trapping him in a shack hours from town—including that the man was Andrew’s other brother reborn—but _he_ had come peacefully once found. This Carter was absolutely demented, to decide that denying Holmes his brother was an acceptable payment for putting Andrew Carter behind bars.

His thoughts derailed. Brother? Since when had he started calling Watson his brother even in his mind?

He pushed it aside for the moment as he succeeded in wresting the gun from Carter’s declining grip, and a pistol butt solidly impacted Carter’s head. The man went limp, and Holmes tossed the gun aside to grab the rope he had left in the sitting room for just this occasion, quickly binding the man on the chance he woke before the Yard arrived. It was only when Holmes went to stand up that he realized something had changed.

Silence filled the flat. The screams had stopped.

He spun. Watson was slumped in the remains of his desk chair, still twitching, convulsing against the cuffs and broken chair, but the fit halted as Holmes stood, and in the absence of the convulsions, Watson sagged limply against the restraints, his face a dusky blue. Holmes could see no evidence of breathing.

For the second time that night, Holmes lunged across the room, his scream of grief echoing off the walls.

"WATSON!!"

There was no response, and Holmes quickly but gently removed the cuffs still connecting Watson’s chafed wrists to the destroyed chair as he frantically checked for breathing. Carter had filled the syringe. Such a dose would likely have been fatal even for Holmes, and he tried to deny the knowledge that his vice had cost him his dearest friend.

Brother. He had called Watson his brother earlier. He had long known that Watson saw him as such, though it had taken Mycroft pointing it out for him to notice the sentiment, but he had never put a name to his side of the friendship he and Watson shared.

It fit, however. There was no need for blood relation for the bond of brothers to exist, and they had been brothers-in-arms for well over a decade. He would never be able to voice such a thing, but he could admit to himself that Watson was just as much his brother as Mycroft. Perhaps more so, as Mycroft was not the one who insisted on helping with Holmes’ cases simply to watch his back.

And now, just as he finally admitted it to himself, Watson was going to leave him, because _Holmes_ had decided that cocaine was a harmless way to escape his thoughts.

Finally freeing Watson from the chair, he laid his friend on the floor and searched for a pulse. Watson’s heartbeat was rapid and irregular, but it was there, and now that he was lying flat, Holmes could see the quick, shallow breaths lifting the doctor’s chest. He breathed a sigh of relief.

The immediate high from cocaine usually lasted anywhere from ten to twenty minutes, he knew. If he could keep Watson alive for that long, there was a chance Watson would wake up.

But would he be the same Watson? Holmes knew that, while the drug itself was considered relatively harmless in small doses, overdosing could have lasting side effects, which was why Holmes was always careful to never go beyond a certain dosage. He had mildly overdosed before, and he never wanted to experience anything like it again.

Now, Watson was experiencing it instead, on a much greater scale. The amount Carter had given Watson was well over _Holmes’_ maximum. What would have easily made him very sick for a few days could still cost him everything. Watson was in danger, and it was completely Holmes’ fault.

A signal in the window sent the Irregular across the street rushing for the Yard and a doctor, and a glass vial shattered in the fireplace. He was done. The stimulation the drug provided was not worth Watson’s life.

Now if only that was not too little, too late.

Holmes knew that there was limited aid available in the case of an overdose besides monitoring and supportive care, but sending for the other doctor might prove of use should Watson display some of the more aggressive effects of cocaine, and, after alerting Mrs. Hudson that it was safe but better if she did not come up, he settled on the floor, monitoring Watson’s shallow breathing even as he occasionally glanced over to make sure Carter was still unconscious.

Carter never moved, but Watson’s breathing deepened closer to normal after a few minutes, and Holmes leaned forward. Was Watson waking so quickly?

It seemed so. The doctor opened his eyes a moment later, his gaze darting around the sitting room.

“Watson?”

There was no response, and Holmes noticed that Watson’s darting gaze never focused.

“Watson, can you hear me?”

“No! No, look out!”

An open hand came at his head, and Holmes barely dodged as Watson called out. He looked back to see Watson thrashing on the floor as if under attack.

“Get down! Murray, help the lieutenant!”

Holmes dodged another pass as Watson flailed, and he tried to hold the doctor down.

“Watson! Watson, you’re home! You’re safe! Watson, listen to me!”

Caught in his hallucination, Watson continued thrashing and screaming, eyes open but staring blankly, and Holmes shuddered as he fought to stop Watson’s thrashing. If not for the movement, Watson would look dead. Was this how Holmes looked when under the effects of the drug? No wonder Watson had compared him to a statue.

The hallucination lasted several minutes, and Holmes began wondering if the Irregular had misunderstood the signal. Would help _ever_ arrive? Carter could wake up any minute, and Holmes desperately hoped there would be something the other doctor could do to help Watson.

Help had still not arrived as Watson’s thrashing finally slowed, then stopped, and Watson seemed to diminish, the facsimile of life fading with the lack of movement. Holmes felt a shiver creep down his spine as Watson limply pinned him with that empty gaze.

“Watson, can you hear me?” No answer, and only the steady rise and fall of Watson’s chest proved that he still lived.

He tried again. “Watson, I demand you answer me!” That had never failed before, Watson’s innate loyalty forcing him to respond even when it should have been impossible for him to hear the demand, but Watson continued staring blankly.

That empty gaze was horrifying in the face of his friend. Watson looked dead; Watson should _not_ look dead. He needed to get rid of that blank stare. “Come on, Watson, focus!”

Watson’s face twitched, and Holmes watched, looking for any indication that Watson was awake. Just as he was about to try again, Watson blinked and slowly focused on Holmes.

He could not conceal his heavy sigh of relief.


	7. Chapter 7

Battle. War. Horror.

Vague impressions of fear and pain filled my mind, and I struggled to push them away even as I struggled to wake fully. I obviously was not dead, nor was I apparently in danger of dying from the slightly overlarge dose of cocaine Carter had given me, and I had something far more important to do than catalogue all the ways I currently hurt. The last thing I remembered was a gunshot, followed by Holmes’ grunt of pain and screaming, and my highest priority was whether Holmes was alright.

A voice registered, speaking above me, and I focused my attention on it, using it to pull myself out of the depths of my own mind and into the real world. The nightmarish impressions plaguing me faded, and I made no attempt to recall them. Cocaine frequently induced hallucinations, I knew, and if I had been hallucinating battle, there was no reason for me to try to remember any of it. I belatedly recognized the voice, and I fought harder. Holmes sounded close to panic, and the only reason I could find for such a thing was that he was injured.

“Watson, focus!”

Impossible traces of fear tinged my friend’s words, and I worried even more. Holmes _never_ let emotion leak into his voice, and its presence indicated something horrible had happened. There had been at least two gunshots. The first had been Carter’s, but I had no idea if Holmes or Carter had fired the second one. Would I open my eyes to find Holmes bleeding, injured? How long had I been unconscious?

I tried to open my eyes to find them already open, and I blinked, worried grey eyes slowly coming into focus. He visibly sighed in relief as my vision cleared, and I scanned him. He leaned over me, worry still in his gaze, but I could see no hint of injury. Could Carter’s gunshot have missed? Then why had he sounded so distressed?

No. There it was, on his arm. Non-urgent. His keen gaze never left me as I studied him, then my surroundings. I was flat on my back in the middle of the floor, to my shoulder’s displeasure, and I could just barely glimpse the broken remains of my desk chair behind him. Where was Carter? Did we need to be on guard for him to attack us again?

“Watson?”

Finally spotting Carter trussed up in the corner, I turned my attention back to Holmes and opened my mouth to reply, but I could not even form the word before I started coughing, which hurt more than it should have. My mouth was horribly dry as well, and my throat was rough, sore. The sore throat was not a typical side effect of cocaine, I knew, but I was more concerned with a drink than at my strange symptoms.

Pouring a glass of water, Holmes helped me sit up enough to drink, and I could not cover a gasp as pain rippled through me. Everything hurt, and I remembered shaking in the chair, fully conscious of every strained muscle as the tremors did not stop pulling when the restraints kept me from moving.

“Watson?” he said again as I laid back down.

I did not answer, breathless from my shoulder spasming at simply lying flat again.

“Watson, say something.”

I was still waiting for the breath the spasm had stolen to return, but I ignored the pain to squeeze his hand, silently telling him that I was awake and could understand him though I could not yet respond. He stared at me worriedly but waited silently as the spasm relaxed and I caught my breath.

My gaze landed again on his bleeding arm, and I managed to get out, “You need to treat that.”

He relaxed, the quiet admonishment telling him much more than it would have anyone else. The simple sentence told him I was coherent, thinking clearly, and relatively uninjured even as I acknowledged that it was currently beyond me to treat his injury. “I have been rather preoccupied,” he told me.

Preoccupied? Oh, with Carter. I glanced over to double check he was still unconscious. He was, but I had no chance to reply as the front door opened below. Many pairs of feet pounded up the stairs, and several Yarders rushed into the sitting room a moment later, Lestrade in the lead.

“What took you so long?” Holmes snapped.

I put a hand on his arm, suppressing a grimace as every muscle forcefully protested the movement. The touch snapped him out of some of the worried anger, and he saw what I had for once noticed first. All of them were out of breath, and I knew Lestrade had been planning to spend the day at the Yard. Whoever Holmes had sent for help had been forced to go to the Yard to get it.

A flicker of remorse crossed Holmes’ face, and I could only hope the Yarders noticed. I was so restless that I was finding it hard to concentrate, which was strange when paired with the fatigue holding me down. I disliked the combination almost as much as I disliked not knowing the reason, and I blocked out the conversation above me as I thought about it. I was restless but extremely tired, and every muscle hurt when I tried to move. My mouth was still dry despite the water I had drank, my throat was sore, and my old injuries were complaining, both at lying flat and from whatever had happened. What could explain everything?

A fit. The symptoms finally came together in my mind. Holmes was always restless after coming down from cocaine, but the muscle pain and fatigue could only be the result of convulsions. Given that I had been tied to a chair, that also explained what had aggravated my old injuries. I had not simply been trembling; I had had a fit from the drug. No wonder Holmes had looked so worried when I woke.

Holmes said something about a doctor, and I refocused on their conversation, looking up to see him and Lestrade standing over me.

Another voice came from the doorway, and Doctor Agar strode across the room as I realized Holmes must have sent the Irregular for the police _and_ a doctor. I frowned at him. Fit or no, there was no need to call a doctor when the dose had been only slightly more than Holmes himself usually injected. It took every ounce of control for me not to point out that Holmes was being something of a hypocrite. He would have hated it if I had called an outside doctor to treat him after a cocaine dose, even after the few times he had taken a little too much, and it irritated me that he would do so to me.

He and Doctor Agar caught my scowl at the same time, with two totally different reactions. Agar merely looked amused, probably assuming that my irritation was an inability to refuse assistance—he well knew how much I hated being treated by anyone but Holmes—but confusion appeared in Holmes’ expression.

He said nothing, however, though the confusion remained as Agar examined me, gently checking my aching muscles for signs of true injury and bandaging where the cuffs had chafed my wrists. He asked what had happened after a few minutes of silence, and Holmes answered when I took too long to reply.

“Carter injected him with a large dose of cocaine, and he had a fit that lasted at least a minute, perhaps longer.”

Agar nodded. “That explains the redness and pain. You probably strained several muscles, but I can find nothing else wrong aside from a higher than usual heartbeat, which the cocaine would have caused. Did you hit your head during the fit?”

I thought through what I remembered and tried to shake my head. “No.” I glanced toward the stairs, wanting little more than to get off the floor, and Holmes caught my gaze—as I had known he would.

“It is safe for him to move to the settee?”

I frowned but had to admit that was probably a better idea than my bed. I doubted I could manage the stairs, and the settee was better than the floor.

With a final worried glance from Lestrade, the Yarders had already left, taking Carter with them, so Holmes and Agar worked together to move me to the settee. I would like to say that they helped me move, but the combined pain of so many pulled muscles made every movement difficult, and I know Holmes noticed when I stopped trying.

“Watson?”

“I’m alright, Holmes. Just sore.”

He studied me but did not dispute my words as Agar suggested a mild pain reliever and rest before focusing on Holmes’ arm, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the injury fully. The wound was not as bad as it could have been—it was little more than a graze—and Agar finished quickly and showed himself out. Minding his bandaged arm, Holmes dragged his armchair over to the settee and sat, staring at me.

Struggling to hold still, I adjusted just enough to try to relax into the cushions, hating the aftereffects almost as much as the supposed “high.” The fit had left me exhausted, but the cocaine made me restless and twitchy. The result was that I was too tired to easily focus and too wired to sleep, which was a highly irritating combination. When that combined with the pain I was experiencing from straining almost every muscle in my body, I was left wondering how Holmes could enjoy this enough to do it so frequently. I had never seen him have a fit even the few times he had slightly overdosed, and the strained muscles were from being tied to a chair, but most of my other symptoms were expected effects of the cocaine that Holmes felt on a slightly lesser basis every time he injected himself. Even the restlessness alone would have been annoying enough.

“I’m fine, Holmes,” I repeated when he stared for too long without speaking, leaning my head onto the pillow. “You don’t need to sit vigil when this is little more than how you must feel every day. How you can enjoy that, I’ll never understand.”

Holmes frowned, and worry renewed in his gaze as he leaned closer, beginning to run his fingers gently over my scalp. I leaned away from him, my abdomen aching sharply with the movement.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for the knot on your head.” He grabbed a candle and lit it, holding the flame a few inches away from my face, and I pushed the candle away with my good arm, irritated enough at the light in my eyes that I could ignore the pain such an action caused.

“Holmes!”

His frown deepened at my irritation, and he resumed checking me over. “Did moving you to the settee make you dizzy?” he asked.

“Of course not! Why are you checking me for a concussion?”

He sat back, surprised at the question, and I knew he recognized that I usually could not diagnose myself with anything more than a very minor concussion. Concussions left me so confused I frequently did not even know I had been injured, and I would never be able to ask him that question—especially with that wording—if I had sustained such an injury.

“Holmes?” I repeated when he stayed silent. “Why are you checking me for a concussion when we already established that I did not hit my head?”

His keen gaze studied me for a long moment before he answered. “Because that is the only thing that could affect your memories.”

Affect my memories? I raised an eyebrow at him, clearly asking him to elaborate, and the worry in his gaze grew.

“You said this was little more than how I must feel every day, but even my largest doses are much less than half of what he gave you.” He paused, fighting to say the words he needed to speak. “I do not know how you are even alive.”

How I was even _alive_? Carter had nearly filled the syringe, but I had known at the time the dose was probably not fatal. Granted, I had not been entirely sure _how_ much Carter had drawn, but some complication would have had to arise for the dose to kill me. Three percent was—

Oh.

_Oh._

I had completely forgotten that he did not know I had been tampering with his supply, and I chuckled faintly.

He started, staring at me as if I had lost my mind, but I replied before he could resume looking for a head injury. “I have been diluting your supply, Holmes. You have been dosing yourself so often it was the only thing I could do to make sure you did not take too much. Carter injected me with something akin to two or three percent, not seven.”


	8. Chapter 8

He sat back in his chair. Three percent? Watson had diluted his supply, and a _three percent_ solution had done this?

Watson continued before he could find the words to reply, quietly stating, “I know you’re angry with me, but I did not have much of a choice. You have been injecting yourself a _lot_ , Holmes, and your doses were only getting larger. I could not…”

He trailed off, hiding a grimace as he painfully readjusted on the settee, but Holmes knew well enough what the rest had been.

Watson could not chance coming home to find Holmes overdosing. He could not chance coming home too late to do anything. He could not chance trusting Holmes to limit himself.

He could not chance trusting Holmes.

Horror shot through him. Not only had he nearly lost his dearest friend, his brother in everything that mattered, but the only reason Watson was still alive was because he had stopped trusting Holmes to limit his intake. He did not know which one was worse, but both sent loathing shooting through him to settle painfully in his chest as they joined with the knowledge that _he hadn’t noticed._ Watson’s trust in him had frayed, and he had been so caught in the web of a supposedly harmless stimulant that it took Watson nearly dying to gain his attention. His resolve strengthened. He would quit the cocaine. Permanently. Harmless or not, the consequences of continuing to take the drug outweighed the inconvenience of not having it as a fallback to escape a Black Mood.

Watson had stopped trusting him in this, and that was the only thing that had prevented Holmes from losing everything. He could not risk a similar occurrence with a different outcome any more than he would risk the possible consequences of losing Watson’s trust completely.

He fought for words, trying to say that he would give it up, that he would quit, but even now, with Watson bedridden from the effects of a dose not much larger than Holmes would have taken, he craved the drug. The words stuck in his throat. He would quit first, then tell Watson. That way if he gave in once or twice, he would not hurt his friend so much, and he would be able to surprise Watson with the announcement that he had gone so long without the cocaine.

He would quit on his own.

“I am not angry,” he finally managed to voice as Watson’s restless twitching slowly tapered off.

Watson sank into the cushions, the heavy fatigue taking over in the absence of the drug-induced restlessness, and his tired gaze focused on Holmes in surprise.

“No?”

“I am not angry,” he repeated, but he could say nothing more. Whether Watson would have replied or not, he did not know. The doctor’s eyes closed, and he was asleep within a few minutes.

Holmes stood up, using the time to gather his spare vials, and more glass littered the fireplace when he was done. He was just about to seat himself back in the armchair when a thought struck him, nearly physical in its urgency.

Mrs. Hudson had not yet checked on them.

He bolted for the door in his haste to get out of the sitting room. Mrs. Hudson had promised long ago not to come upstairs until the police arrived should something happen, but she _always_ came up after the police left, both to check on them and to help if needed. Had Carter attacked her before staging himself near the door of the sitting room? He thought she had acknowledged his call earlier, but then why had she not come up to check on them after the police left?

Barely preventing the door from slamming into the wall and waking Watson, he lunged into the hall and prepared to race down the stairs. A shape caught his eye before he had made it two steps into the hall, however, and he looked to see Mrs. Hudson moving away from the top of the stairs. He halted, studying her.

She was unhurt, and his alarm turned into confusion as she hurried towards him, her worry evident both in the way she studied him and in the way she looked toward the door.

“The Inspector said I shouldn’t interrupt,” she said quickly, her gaze alternating between him and the door, “that you both were alert and needed no help, but I could hear everything. Is the doctor—?”

His confusion drained at her explanation, and he relaxed. “Watson will recover,” he answered, “but I doubt he will move far from the settee for a few days.”

She sighed in relief. “Oh, thank Heaven. Do you need anything? Does he need anything?”

Holmes thought for a moment, remembering how he felt in the hours after indulging and factoring in Watson’s evident injuries. “He is asleep, for now, but I imagine he will be hungry when he wakes. Perhaps some broth?”

Mrs. Hudson nodded. “Anything else?”

He shook his head. “Watson will be alright with some rest. Just the broth, for now. I do not think he will be up for anything more tonight.”

She frowned slightly but said nothing, only turning to go downstairs. Before she had fully turned, however, she noticed the bandage on his arm. “Are you alright?”

A flicker of a smile crossed his face at her question, and he quickly reassured her. “It is little more than a graze. It will heal.”

Relief painted her expression yet again, and she turned to go back down the stairs as Holmes’ thoughts traitorously added to his sentence.

His injury would heal, but _Watson’s_ very nearly hadn’t.

He hurried back to the sitting room.


	9. Chapter 9

I was confined to the settee for three days before the muscles I had so badly strained healed enough for me to walk, and I spent much of the time studying Holmes. Something had changed in the days since Carter had attacked us, but aside from Holmes’ cocaine vial disappearing from the mantle, I had no idea what it might be.

He stayed nearby almost constantly, though that was far from unusual given that I could not easily move from the settee. Sometimes, he would converse with me, but he was just as likely to ignore my attempts or give monosyllabic answers as he was to welcome a conversation, so I could gather nothing from that. He played the violin frequently and seemed to make a game out of deducing what I needed before I tried to get it myself. He alternated between irritable and apologetic, and he seemed restless. I had thought for a day or two there that he was getting sick, but the beginning symptoms of a cold I had noticed disappeared soon enough. The only reason I could find for such a change was the fact that his cocaine usage had plummeted. All he had to do was go to his room to hide it from me, but I saw little to no evidence that he was using, and I began to relax again. Maybe seeing the drug’s effects on me had convinced him to slow down a bit, I decided, and I was grateful.

Even after I ventured from the sitting room, I was not mobile enough to monitor or tamper with his supply for days. The convulsions had strained almost every muscle in my body, and the pain in my shoulder and leg continued even as the rest faded, leaving me limping and moving slowly for nearly a week after I was able to walk.

I still saw no more evidence of Holmes’ cocaine as my mobility returned, however. He had told me that he was not angry at me for diluting his supply, and I wanted to believe him, but he had never so calmly accepted my attempts to slow his use. I was sure he was at least slightly angry with me, but I could not bring myself to voice an apology. I could not apologize for trying to keep him alive, and if he truly was not angry, then it had been hurt that I had seen in his gaze. He thought that I could not trust him, that I could not believe that he would avoid an overdose without help. I would never purposely hurt him, but I could not even try to explain why I had diluted his cocaine.

He stubbornly avoided the subject, refusing to answer even after I found glass in the fireplace that matched the glass of his cocaine vials. The one he usually kept on the mantle must have broken in the scuffle with Carter, though I knew it was only a matter of time before he replaced it. I hardly dared to hope that he had given up the cocaine forever, but I did hope that seeing its effects on me had opened his eyes to what he did to himself with every injection. I kept a careful eye on my medical supply, but it never decreased, and within a few days, I was faintly beginning to hope that this binge had finally run its course, that he would return to no more than the occasional use about which I had known for years.

As that hope gained strength, I began using my returning mobility to escape the flat for a couple of hours at a time, disregarding the rain as I sought a break after being confined to our rooms for so long. My excursions were usually performing an errand, but there was one sunny day that I spent on the bench I favored near the river, only leaving when yet another storm blew in and sent me walking home as a downpour washed the city.

Breathing a sigh of relief as I closed the door behind me, I limped my way up the stairs, grateful to be home and out of the storm. My leg twinged occasionally, both complaining about the storm and still not quite healed, but I tried to ignore it in my quest to reach the sitting room. The series of storms that had blown in a week after I was able to move from the settee had conspired to slow my healing, and I would be glad to sit for a while after walking back from the riverfront.

“Holmes?” I said as I opened the door to the sitting room. “Holmes, did you still want to—Holmes!”

He was curled up in his chair, shivering violently next to a blazing fire, and a familiar vial sat on the table behind him. I had never seen him tremble so badly when simply indulging, and I forgot the pain in my leg as I nearly ran across the room.

His hands were clenched tightly into his chest, and I grabbed his wrist to tab his pulse. It was racing, speeding faster than anything I had ever seen before. He must have gone out to get a new vial to replace the one that had broken in the scuffle, and he had injected himself without remembering that I had diluted his last supply. He was overdosing in front of me.

My grip on his wrist roused him, and he opened his eyes to look at me. His eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to say something, but the words faltered as he started to choke, his tremors increasing as he fought to breathe.

“Holmes! Holmes, don’t do this to me!” The words came out reflexively as I positioned him in a way that would aid his breathing. Respiratory failure was the most common cause of death in slight overdoses, with cardiac arrest found in the more severe ones. I was about to watch him die, and it was completely my fault.

“Holmes, stop fighting it, relax, and breathe!”

It seemed like ages, but only a couple of moments passed before the tremors subsided again, and Holmes got in one shaking breath, then two. I sighed in relief.

That one had been short, no more than a few seconds, but how long would the next last? I had evidently walked in just after he had injected himself, judging by the spot of blood still beading on his arm. This was only the beginning.

I could not even be angry with him. This was _my_ fault. First, I had fed his habit by teaching him medicine. Then I had missed the signs, letting him sink into a binge so deep it was a miracle he pulled out of it at all, much less on his own. And now, my deception, my subterfuge at diluting his cocaine had led to him overdosing.

If he died, it would be my fault. If he lived, it was time to ask whether he would be safer without me. If I was not here to hound him about it, would he still indulge? If I was not here diluting and hiding his supply, would he stop taking so much simply to show me that I couldn’t stop him? It would tear me apart, but I would pack my bags as soon as he pulled through the overdose if it meant he would not have another.

I pushed those thoughts aside for the moment, focusing my attention on helping him. Holmes was still trembling from the effects of the drug, and he would need help to survive this. I could debate my course of action later.

He must have read some of the thoughts on my face, however, as his grip on my hand tightened. I brought my other hand up, thinking he was having another breathing attack, but he shook his head.

“Not—not your fault,” he managed to get out through the tremors shaking his body.

“Of course, not,” I replied, lying through my teeth as I focused more on helping him than on disputing his words. His overdose _was_ my fault. I knew it, but that could wait. I could not take my focus away from him. He had already survived one breathing attack. If the next took him, he would be dead because of me. Because I had diluted his supply.

“Carter d-did not break—v-vial.” I looked back up, catching his gaze in my surprise as he struggled to speak. “I did. Tried—to quit. F-failed. My f-fault, n-not yours.”

I stared at him for a moment as that sank in. He had tried to quit alone? It had been nearly two weeks since Carter had broken into the flat. He had made it nearly a fortnight without cocaine? How had he hidden the signs of withdrawal from me?

I remembered the changes I had seen, the cold I thought he had beaten, and I could have kicked myself for being so clueless, so blind. He had not hidden them; I just hadn’t noticed them, further proving how unobservant I was. He had suffered through the withdrawal symptoms before my eyes, however silently, and _I hadn’t noticed_.

I made no reply, breaking eye contact as I tried to make him more comfortable in the armchair. I could not move him to the settee with the way he was trembling, but he was so tense, the armchair could not be very comfortable. With him settled as best I could, I dragged my medical bag from its place near my desk and pulled out the thermometer, expecting to find a raging fever.

His temperature was lower than I anticipated, however, and I frowned. How had he managed to take enough to affect his breathing without giving himself much more than a low-grade fever? His trembling wasn’t even that bad, given that he had been able to speak, however falteringly.

It did not matter, I decided. His symptoms were what they were, and I did not have time to worry about any that did not appear. He was sick enough as it was.

I sat by him all afternoon and into the night. There were no more breathing attacks, but his fever remained for hours after his trembling stopped. Managing to move him into a more comfortable position on the settee as he stopped shaking, I slept in the chair I pulled closer, dozing fitfully as I listened to his breathing with one hand tabbing his pulse.


	10. Chapter 10

He could tell Watson didn’t believe him, but the tremors were making it too difficult to speak. He could not get a sentence out without several words breaking and stuttering, and he set the topic aside until he could speak clearly, until his muscles stopped betraying his commands to hold still, and focused on dealing with the effects of the overlarge dose of cocaine he had taken. The tremors seemed to last for hours, and he was exhausted from the fever even after the tremors calmed. He eventually fell asleep in the chair, now trembling due to the chills coursing through him from the fever, and when he woke, he was on the settee, several rugs piled over him.

A hand rested on his wrist, and he followed it to where Watson sat limply in the armchair he had pulled to the settee, evidently having spent the night tabbing Holmes’ pulse.

Something about the way Watson had slouched in the chair in sleep reminded him of that horrible day a fortnight ago, and fear shot through him. Was Watson—

He twisted his hand, grabbing the doctor’s wrist in a bid to check for a heartbeat, and Watson started awake, immediately focusing on the settee.

“Holmes?” Watson leaned forward, evidently thinking Holmes had grabbed him asking for help.

“No, I’m fine,” he said quickly, and the fear that had sparked in Watson’s gaze shuttered and died as Holmes studied him, reaffirming to himself that his friend was alright, that the worst had _not_ happened.

Gently removing Holmes’ hand from his wrist, Watson eased himself out of Holmes’ armchair and poured a glass of water. Holmes quickly noticed the way his friend avoided eye contact.

“Not your fault,” he said again.

A faint smile of amusement at his stubbornness flickered across Watson’s face, but Holmes could see that the doctor still did not believe him.

“How are you feeling?” Watson asked before Holmes could try again.

“Like an idiot,” Holmes replied around sips. “Maybe there is something to your idea that the cocaine affects my thinking, because I forgot to account for going without for so long.”

Watson made no answer, merely bringing a bowl of broth from the table and helping Holmes sit up enough to eat it, and Holmes frowned. Why was Watson hiding his thoughts?

“Watson?” 

“What?”

Watson left the broth within reach and sat back in his chair, ignoring Holmes’ gaze, and Holmes’ frown deepened. It always disconcerted him when Watson shut his thoughts away. It rarely meant anything good.

“Why are you hiding your thoughts from me?”

“I’m not. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Watson.” They both knew Holmes could see through such a blatant lie.

“What do you want me to say, Holmes?”

“I want you to tell me what you are thinking.”

Watson huffed a hollow laugh. “I’m thinking you need to eat. Do you need help?”

He shook his head, hungry enough to pick up the spoon as he struggled for words. “No, you are not, not primarily. We have been over this, Watson. I can tell that something is wrong, and I can tell you are acting, but I cannot see through to what you are really thinking.”

“You do not always need to know what everyone is thinking.”

Said with a hint of a smirk, anyone else would have taken that for Watson’s normal pawky humor, but Holmes knew better, responding in kind.

“Since when is your name ‘Everyone’?”

Another hollow laugh escaped as Watson turned away, rolling his eyes and pretending to fidget with something on the side of the armchair. “John Everyone,” he muttered into the chair. “Sounds like a book character. Figures you would come up with a name more romantic than any of my inventions.”

The words were much more cynical than sarcastic, and another night with another cynical comment came to mind. A few pieces clicked into place, and he nearly groaned. He had been so blind!

“Watson?”

“What?”

“Tell me what you are thinking.”

Watson looked up at him, indecision in his gaze, and Holmes stared, patiently waiting, hoping that Watson would not shut him out completely. Watson’s trust had been unsteady to begin with, after what had happened a couple of months ago, and Holmes had only made it worse when he missed the signs the first night Watson caught him indulging in the cocaine.

Silence reigned for a long moment as Watson stared, and Holmes began to worry that there would be no answer. Had he missed too many signs in the last weeks?

Watson opened his mouth, then closed it again, hesitating. He tried again a minute later, finally voicing a quiet question. “Does—Would you take less if I did not lecture you about it?”

Horror shot through him yet again, and the word came without thought. “No!” Watson jumped at the vehemence, and Holmes fought to complete his thoughts, to deny everything he had just deduced from that simple question. Watson would _never_ be able to stay silent when Holmes got out the cocaine. Watson was not offering a trade; he was asking if his presence had anything to do with Holmes’ intake. “I do _not_ take it just to spite you, and I would _not_ take less were you not here.” He would probably take more if he drove his friend away, but he refrained from voicing that. “This was _not_ your fault, Watson. Neither you _nor_ your actions caused what happened last night.”

A remembrance of fear appeared in Watson’s gaze at the reminder, and Holmes fought to continue, fought to voice what he needed to say as the panic in Watson’s tone pushed itself to the forefront of his thoughts.

_Holmes! Holmes, don’t do this to me!_

“I tried to quit. Last night was the first in nearly two weeks.”

“And that just shows how blind I am,” Watson whispered.

Holmes shut his mouth in confusion. How could Holmes failing to quit make Watson blind?

Watson read his silent question. “I never noticed. You went through withdrawals while I was on bedrest. I was in the same room as you for three days, and I was too blind to identify the changes I noticed with cocaine withdrawal. What else have I missed by seeing but not observing? I fed your habit by teaching you medicine, you went into your first deep binge when I announced my marriage, and now you overdose because I diluted your supply. You nearly stopped breathing minutes after I returned. If the storm yesterday had not chased me out of the park when it did, I would have come home to find you dead in your armchair, and it would have been completely my fault.”

A piece of Watson’s barrier crumpled, and heavy grief and worry appeared on his face. He broke eye contact to hide his expression in his palms as Holmes berated himself for being such a slave to the drug that he missed how much he was risking. His trouble the night before had been less the overdose and more the surprise—and fear of the consequences—at Watson’s returning less than a minute after he had injected himself, but he had been only a fraction of a dose away from a true problem. He might already have a problem, if he could not find the words he needed.

_I do not want to return home to find you dead!_

_If he loses you, he will not be long behind_.

He nearly flinched, suppressing a shiver snaking its way down his spine, and the fear at what might have been gave him the courage and the words to speak.

“Watson?” He let the silence stretch, continuing only when Watson looked up, his thoughts again hidden. “We need to get out of London.”

Confusion flickered briefly across Watson’s expression, but he nodded. “Alright…Why?”

“Because there is no way I will be able to stay away from the cocaine trapped in the city.”

Watson stilled, a faint hope burgeoning in his eyes to push the stoic mask aside, and Holmes nodded. “I should not have tried to quit alone. How does the Cornish coast sound?”

The smile that slowly spread over Watson’s face was all the answer he needed. They would be going to Cornwall until Holmes had broken his addiction.

He doubted it would take long. After all, if Watson was not alone, then neither was he.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always greatly appreciated :)


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